The Light Behind

As I pulled  up in my driveway today after work, the Sun had set and a darkness was overcoming the land.  I climbed out of my car and glanced up, which I do nearly every day this time of year.  Up in the sky was a spectacular landscape of bright stars shining down.  The stars are one of the things I like most about being back out in the country.

A few hours later, after the kids were in bed, I took the garbage out as we finished up the dishes.  As I opened up the trashcan, which was nestled up next to our garage, I decided to look up again and see one last view of the beautiful stars.  As I looked up, our bright porch light blinded my eyes.  No stars could be seen through that bright, piercing porch light.   I knew the stars were out there, but I absolutely could not pick them out.  I then looked back away from the bright light and again was blessed with the beautiful stars.

How many times, when staring at the problems in my life, do I feel like God is not there.  As I keep my eyes focused on my problems, I cannot see God at work.  Even though he is there transcending my problems, my eyes cannot see him because I am too focused on my problems.  When I look away from the problems and focus on God, I can then again see his Light and gain strength to deal with my problems.

There is no doubt that taking our eyes off of our problems and acting like they are not there is not going to solve them.  This is stepping into denial which gets us nowhere.

 Instead, this situation challenged me to look away from the problems from time to time and look straight at God forgetting everything else.  When I do this, I gain the strength needed to look again at my problems and find the solutions to them.